[MUD-Dev] Striving for originality

[John Buehler]

Daniel Harman writes:
> From: shren [mailto:shren at io.com]

>> Consider healing.  MUDs hand out damage like candy, generally,
>> and have 700 ways to heal it.  Since you're going to have only
>> one way of healing, you're going to have to rethink damage.
>> You're going to have to rethink every game mechanic in the world
>> just to integrate orthagonality of skills.

> Orthogonality of skills is an assumption I don't subscribe to. If
> you create a classless system with skill reallocation, it becomes
> irrelevant as natural selection will dictate which skills do or do
> not make the grade.

I think that's an incomplete statement, however.  Conclude the above
with "in games with a single goal and which provide a single tactic
to accomplishing that goal" and I'll agree with it.  That covers
games that make reaching level 50 the purpose of the game, with hit
point attrition being the one-dimentional tactic used to achieve it.
If a game has multiple goals which are orthogonal or even
overlapping, and which rely on multiple tactics, then classless
systems with skill reallocation are viable.  At least, that's my
working assumption as I push forward on My Game Design (c).

JB

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